This activity was pretty easy and fast to set up. I grabbed three sandwich baggies and squirted a glob of finger paint in each one. I used the three primary colors for some play with mixing colors.

I taped each of the baggies to the window. Light shown through it very nicely!

I first let George play with the paint by squishing it around, spreading it throughout the baggies. Henry wasn’t interested in taking part at this moment, he was playing rather nicely, so that’s okay. George has been jumping at the chance at an activity lately! I love it when they’re so excited! Shh. They’re learning. Don’t tell them.

Once the paint was good and spread out, I showed George that he could move the baggies around on the window and cover each other up to make new colors.

Henry hopped up as he saw us doing this.

He mixed every color he could. As the light shown through them, they made new colors! Orange, purple, green… and even brown when he layered all three primary colors.

George didn’t really understand the color mixing. Instead, it was a great opportunity to reinforce the colors that he’s finally getting the hang of.

Henry noticed that sometimes the mixed color didn’t show through very well and realized if he spread the finger paint out further he could get it to mix better to make the other colors.

Often, when we do art projects, I only set out two (sometimes all three) primary colors so the kids make a new color without even knowing what they’re doing. Check out some examples: